Sitting down with the son of a Legend

If there is one thing that I love to work on, it's a good sports story. Many of us at Main Gate got our start doing sports projects - from Head of Creative Todd Hickey, who skyrocketed onto the scene with his critically acclaimed (and one of Netflix's highest rated sports documentaries), to Director Curtis Albucher's work documenting Villanova's run to the NCAA Basketball Championship, to Greg Gray's football highlight and documentary shorts for 'Ole Miss, to our current in-progress documentary features None More American and Heart of Victory. It's in our blood. The competition, the comraderie, the brotherhood, the individual discipline, the total of a team being greater than the sum of its parts. In its most bare form, it is just pure, raw, human drama.

When our team at Main Gate learned we were going to be sitting down with the son of an NFL Legend, we were pretty excited to say the least. The natural expansion from sports, especially collegiate sports, brought us closer to university administration, intercollegiate athletics, recruitment, and alumni outreach. We have worked with so many amazing institutions - The United States Military Academy at West Point, the University of Miami, Penn State University, UCLA - and one of our favorite projects is the University of Miami's "Stories of U." We literally get to travel around the country to meet an eclectic group of leaders, entrepreneurs, educators, scientists, and athletes as they talk about what brought them to "The U," and what the impact of their experience will be long term.

So we were pretty excited to hear we would be working with Jarrett Payton, son of arguably the best NFL running back of all time. Jarrett took his football skills to the University of Miami, and while his father's shoes may be impossible to fill, Jarrett put together some pretty incredible performances, including being named MVP of the 2004 Orange Bowl and eventually being drafted by the Tennessee Titans. What becomes even more apparent when you sit down with him is the absolute reverance and respect he has for his father, his family, his city, and his university.